This photo shows part of the stretch of road I run on. (This was last year. Right now the fields are the colour of tobacco,patchy with mud splattered snow.) I still think it's beautiful. I did my first 5k since the fall today. Shuffle is a better word for what I do. And it's not really just a quitting face book strategy.That was a bit tongue in cheek. After working out an hour a day pretty faithfully when we lived in D.C., we moved here four years ago and starting building our home. I thought that would keep me fit -a great work-out-functional fitness and all that. I kept doing my yoga until my shoulder started acting up. In the end, I wrote more and helped less as there was only so much I could do. It was forty minutes to the closest gym. So despite my best intentions--to keep motivated on my own-- well, what does five pounds a year for four years add up to?

"My, my, how she's let herself go."

Last April I started running to Leetik's and back-same 5K I did today. And I plugged in a Jillian Michaels video yesterday. I cursed her the whole time but I realized it was so much easier than when I work out alone. Shed,shred! she said. Shedup! I said . But Jillian Flat Abs didn't and Me Flabby Abs kept moving.

So today I got thinking. About loneliness of the long distance runner. Were I to continue on running on this road above , I'd be running on what has been called the worst road in Nova Scotia ,the Cape John Road - BUT ..... I would run past this :

and end up here at the end of the line

The scenery along Cape John Road is breathtaking and I've heard the road will be repaired.

So? Would it be possible for me to run out there ( not out and back ) by the end of the summer? Whoah!!!! What a thought. Note sure how many k's --twenty minutes by car. There and back by bike it's an hour.

And and and and ....maybe there's someone else who'd like to join me running?

Or walking. Shuffling.

A River John Runners Club? The Rural Runners Club? We could meet at the River John School and head out say once a week? Mark our progress. Plan a Cape John Marathon! Raise money to help keep the doors of our small school open? Enough to repair our roof? Could the operations people at the School Board refuse our donation?

See what happens when endorphins kick in?

I love where I live. I love River John Consolidated School and the teachers and students here. This community cannot lose the school or the children will lose and the heart of this place is gone. They ( the GOVERNMENT -all stripes ) say they want to revive rural communities. That won't happen shutting down our small schools.

The SOS --Support our School committee is working hard and has come up with an initial plan and it's a good one. And workable. But we need information. We've run up against so many administrative roadblocks it's shocking. It hard not to think someone somewhere's already decided our school is closing even though we were given a chance to come up with a plan. The clock is ticking. Maybe that's why running made me think of the school. Running, running out of time. And the deadline we were given was after a review process that was reviewed because it was faulty. Every roadblock costs this community time needed and the possibility of keeping our school open depends on time.

Running. On hope. We have a meeting with Operations people Monday Night.

Yes, there's a lot of people who are working very hard to keep our school running.

A lot of life lived here in River John.

A lot of children and families here who need this school.

We are small, but we work hard and dream big.

One thing I know--- we are not running away.

“the long-distance run of an early morning makes me think that every run like this is a life- a little life, I know- but a life as full of misery and happiness and things happening as you can ever get really around yourself” ― Alan Sillitoe, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner